Translation errors and oddities in LTROI - a compilation

[PeteMork]

I agree. What an undertaking! So many new thoughts for us all to consider.

[Even]

A wonderful thread! I really want to thank you for the work you've put in here. I shouldn't be too down on the original translation, I can't know the circumstances in which that work was done, but I agree with most of your criticisms. It's been satisfying having these little confusions resolved. It's been a joy seeing some of these scenes sparkle. You've been entertaining too. Thank you again <3 x

[Even]

I think both translations lack the ominous finality the Swedish original evokes, thanks to the final t sound...

... To the native English speakers of this forum: What expression and spelling would you suggest?

This is deep WTI nerding, but it's funny that such a sound can cause such an issue. It is difficult, isn't it? I wish we had a better onomatopoeic equivalent. It's a very interesting topic regardless. I wouldn't be able to talk about this sort of thing elsewhere... I'll probably sound a bit odd here.

Our most common satisfying 'sharp' sounds that end with plosives do seem to reference scissors and separation (clip, snip, snit), or seem too 'airy' (swipe, swish, swoosh, shwip)? 'Slit' is itself almost onomatopoeic, and is a great word - we could do with a few more. 'slash' has the semi-liquid 'l', but is too violent and gory. It gushes. 'sh' is usually very airy, very wet, or to me suggests spray like 'sss' might. 'phhhhhssst' makes me picture brief blood spray that ends politely after a tap is turned off.

'shvitt' is satisfying to me and I could maybe picture someone saying that in conversation, but it might need to be exaggerated to read better as English onomatopoeia ('sshviit' ?). Otherwise, I might first read it as an expression that's gone over my head. But the original is better - neat and nasty. phew.

[Meenzer]

Thank you so much for this thread! I'm a German-English translator by profession (tedious business and finance texts rather than fun fiction, sadly) and half of my family is Swedish - though rather shamefully, my own Swedish skills are nowhere near enough strong enough for me to work with the language professionally. Despite that, I spent the first part of LTROI tripping over awkward constructions and trying to work backwards to what I figured the original Swedish must have been and what it was that caused the translator to stumble. However, it was a factual blooper - penguins in Soviet Georgia?! - that tipped me over the edge and made me wonder if anyone else had documented the various issues I was encountering and reacted with the same bemusement. Hence Googling it and landing here!

Since then, I've been reading the book then referring back to this thread after each chapter to fill in any gaps caused by the translation issues - so again, thank you! I saw the Alfredson film years ago so I wasn't too concerned about potential spoilers, but this was my first time with the book (I know, I know ) so it was great to have an intelligent companion like this. Plus nerding out on translation stuff is generally awesome, obviously. Inconsistencies drive me mad too - I endeavour to avoid them when translating dry financial reports that no one will ever actually read, so it's always frustrating to encounter them in mainstream literature that should (presumably) have gone through some kind of copyediting process...

You'll all be far more familiar with this than I am, so I have to ask: I picked up the book from a charity shop and it's from the original UK paperback run. Has a corrected/improved translation of the book been brought out in the meantime, or is this cheerfully flawed version still the one that's out there?

[Siggdalos]

Apologies for the late reply, but that's very flattering to hear (or read, rather) from all of you, especially you, Meenzer.

You'll all be far more familiar with this than I am, so I have to ask: I picked up the book from a charity shop and it's from the original UK paperback run. Has a corrected/improved translation of the book been brought out in the meantime, or is this cheerfully flawed version still the one that's out there?

I personally don't know exactly how many different versions of the book there are. However, I know that in a thread from 2011, some other users discussed a part of the book where the dish pytt-i-panna was translated into "bubble and squeak" in English. This isn't found in the version that I own (which as far as I can find is a 2009 ebook version of the paperback edition published in 2008 by Quercus); that one instead leaves pytt-i-panna untranslated. So I guess there's at least two versions of the English translation floating about, but I've no idea about what other differences there are between those versions.

[Meenzer]

Apologies for the late reply, but that's very flattering to hear (or read, rather) from all of you, especially you, Meenzer.

You'll all be far more familiar with this than I am, so I have to ask: I picked up the book from a charity shop and it's from the original UK paperback run. Has a corrected/improved translation of the book been brought out in the meantime, or is this cheerfully flawed version still the one that's out there?

I personally don't know exactly how many different versions of the book there are. However, I know that in a thread from 2011, some other users discussed a part of the book where the dish pytt-i-panna was translated into "bubble and squeak" in English. This isn't found in the version that I own (which as far as I can find is a 2009 ebook version of the paperback edition published in 2008 by Quercus); that one instead leaves pytt-i-panna untranslated. So I guess there's at least two versions of the English translation floating about, but I've no idea about what other differences there are between those versions.

My turn for a late reply apology - thank you for this info, I may well see if I can track down a copy of the other translation if only to engage in a spot of language geekery

[CubiksRube]

I recently finished reading the English translation (St. Martins Trade Paperback, United States) and made an account here just to reply to this thread! Thank you for writing this up, its very enlightening to learn about the intricacies that English readers missed out on.

For the English version quoted in this thread, are you working from the UK original translation?

I noticed that largely the US St. Martins Trade Paperback is in line with your English quotes but there is at least one alteration it seems.

Ive provided a few photos of my book to compare.
https://imgur.com/a/SGIApx6

The part three scene where Oskar and Eli hide from a man in the cellar is the same.

The last sentence before the epilogue ends with "glittering like myriad white stars" rather than "rustle at the edge of the pool." They used a more poetic structure, similar to the one that you suggested. I wonder if the editors of the publishing company saw this thread.

The publishing information for this edition states it is the 2007 translation by Ebba Segerberg but it does not seem to be EXACT.

Again, thank you very much for this awesome thread!

The part where O&E hide from the man is slightly longer in the original. One paragraph and one line were (I assume accidentally) left out of the translation. For comparison (with the part that's missing from LTROI in bold):

De knölade snabbt in sig i en matkällare där de knappt hade rum att sitta höft mot höft, andades djupt och tyst. En mansröst hördes.
»Vad gör ni här nere?«
Oskar satt tätt tryckt intill Eli. Det bubblade i bröstet. Mannen gick några steg in i källaren.
»Var är ni nånstans?«
Oskar och Eli höll andan när mannen stod stilla, lyssnade. Sedan sa han: »Jävla ungar«, och gick därifrån.

[They quickly squeezed into a food cellar where they hardly had room to sit hip against hip, breathed deeply and quietly. A man's voice was heard.
»What are you doing down here?«
Oskar sat tightly pressed next to Eli. It was bubbling inside his chest. The man took a few steps into the basement.
»Where are you?«
Oskar and Eli held their breath as the man stood still, listened. Then he said: »Damn kids«, and left.]

They quickly piled into a cellar where they hardly had room to sit hip against hip, and breathed quickly and quietly. They heard a man’s voice.
‘What are you doing down here?’
Oskar and Eli held their breath as the man waited, listening. Then he said ‘Damn kids’ and left.

Unlike the missing E&H dialogue I talked about earlier in the thread, this doesn't really change anything. I think the description of how Oskar feels when sitting next to Eli is cute, though, so it being left out of the translation is a bit of a loss either way.

The reinforced glass didn’t shatter like regular glass. It exploded into thousands of tiny rounded fragments that, after flying out into the hall, over the water, glittering like myriad white stars, landed with a rustle at the edge of the pool.

Just like "Seen with love", this last pre-epilogue sentence of the novel is accurate to the original in terms of literal meaning, but once again my issue is with the structure. In LDRKI, "white stars" is at the end of the sentence:

Säkerhetsglaset sprack inte som vanligt glas. Det exploderade i tusentals pyttesmå rundade fragment som föll rasslande mot bassängkanten, flög in i hallen, över vattnet, glittrade som en myriad av vita stjärnor.

[The reinforced glass didn't shatter like regular glass. It exploded into thousands of tiny rounded fragments that fell rustling against the edge of the pool, flew into the hall, over the water, glittered like a myriad of white stars.]

This is part of JAL's Divine Comedy homage that I mentioned in an edit to an earlier part of the thread, wherein three of LDRKI's five parts end on the word stjärnor ("stars"). Even if you ignore that aspect, ending the chapter with the comparison to stars—a poetic description that stands in stark contrast to the bloodbath the reader knows is going to unfold off-page moments later and which gets described after the fact in the epilogue—IMO makes for a much better conclusion that stays in one's memory more than the mundane description of the rustling noise the fragments make when landing. Again, this is of course a matter of taste, but I feel pretty strongly about this particular case.

[Siggdalos]

The English version I have is this one: https://www.bokus.com/bok/9781849163491 ... ht-one-in/



As mentioned above, I couldn't tell you how many editions of the English translation there are, but I guess there must've been at least some edits for the US edition. Glad to hear the thread was of use. Looking back on it now a few years later, I think it's kind of badly written in several places (in the sense that I didn't express my thoughts or describe the specific issues all that well), but oh well.